A frank and civil dialogue on charters
For years, charter schools leaders and their supporters in Silicon Valley, and district officials and teachers have been talking at each other at charter hearings and accusingly behind each other’s backs.
Rarely had they talked directly to one another frankly and civilly – at least for any length of time. But that’s what happened for seven hours Saturday during a Charter Summit that the trustees of the Santa Clara County Office of Education organized.
County trustees were the natural conveners, because they have felt caught in between districts’ antagonisms and charters’ ambitions. They have taken seriously their obligation to hear charter appeals, and granted charters that districts had rejected, based on an objective reading of the state charter law. Without their approval, well-respected charter schools – ACE Public School Network and Rocketship Education – wouldn’t be raising parents’ hopes and students’ expectations in low-income areas of San Jose.
But once the county office becomes the authorizer, responsible for monitoring charters, districts and charter schools have even less cause to work together. As board President Anna Song and trustee Joseph DiSalvo observed in a written welcome, “If competition creates fear and hostility, our children lose.”
There will be more, not less, competition in coming years. The Obama administration views charters as part of its strategy of turning around low-performing schools, and Silicon Valley startup charters – ACE, Rocketship and Downtown College Prep, which will open its third high school in East San Jose, have expansion plans.
An unequal playing field
The 200 forum participants, divided fairly evenly among charter advocates and district administrators and officials, came in with a goal of collaborating, according to interactive voting conducted throughout the day. But they also expressed long-standing tensions, based on perceptions that the playing field for charter schools and district schools is uneven.
Depending on the issue, both sides feel aggrieved. Charter leaders often get pushed around from portable to portable or end up in church basements under an imperfect facilities law, Proposition 39. Even district leaders say the Legislature needs to fix it.
District leaders say that charter schools drain money from public schools; at a minimum, fixed costs must be covered. Charter leaders respond that charters are public schools, open to all. Districts have no claim over tuition; it follows the child to the school that the parents choose.
District officials say that charters aren’t educating their share of handicapped students; generally, they’re right, though the reasons may be complex. They say that charters siphon off engaged parents, a key asset to any school. But as panelist Greg Lippman, founder the charter middle school ACE Public Network, said, involved versus uninvolved parents is a false dichotomy. His school reaches out to engage parents who may not have been active before in their children’s education.
Contract thwarts innovation
Using their electronic keypads, participants nearly unanimously agreed that all public schools should enjoy some of the freedoms and options available to charter schools. When asked to vote on the obstacles standing in the way of district schools, some indicated the bureaucratic state ed code; others blamed uniformity imposed by a district’s administrators. But most cited a district’s restrictive teacher contract. It can stand in the way of charter schools’ flexibility over scheduling, extending the school day, creating alternate pay systems, hiring teachers who are in sync with the school’s focus and dismissing those who aren’t.
Rocketship Education uses online learning, led by non-certificated staff, to supplement classroom work and free up money to fund its new school building and other programs. CEO John Danner said that arrangement could never happen under a union contract.
But Bill Erlendson, assistant superintendent of San Jose Unified, said it was also false to say that only charter schools innovate. He’s right.
No cornered market on innovation
A video made for the conference offered glimpses into creative and successful charter and district schools in Santa Clara County. You couldn’t tell offhand which were charters and which were district schools: James McEntee Academy, a small school in low-income Alum Rock, Bracher Elementary, a high scoring Latino school in Santa Clara, Rocketship Mateo Sheedy and Downtown College Prep are just good schools.
As Eric Premack, director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, observed, “A charter is just a vehicle, nothing more. It must be used to advance good practices.”
Participants suggested ways to get district and charter schools to share what they do well: hold quarterly meetings on best practices, visit each other’s schools, post videos on a new web site.
Whether any of these happen, the forum did de-escalate tensions and at least got a dialogue going.
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SVEF is the education foundation advocating for the needs of school districts across Silicon Valley. SVEF seeks to improve public education through establishing partnerships with the private sector and the education community ..
I was a bit stunned by Song and DiSalvo’s comment that “If competition creates fear and hostility, our children lose.” This suggests that fear and hostility on the part of teachers will make students lose. Do Song and DiSalvo imagine that teachers are incapable of filtering? I work for a law firm; if I find fear or hostility in my workplace (particularly from competition), do I get to allow it to affect the level of service I provide my clients? Does any profession, with a straight face, suggest that such a response would be okay? I would expect that teachers and administrators — even those who feel fear or hostility as a result of some issue with charter schools — would not allow their feelings about work to impact the level of service they provide to their students. The rest of us have to make similar separations every day.
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James: I quoted from the Welcome from Anna Song and Joseph DiSalvo. They also expressed hope that teachers and others in district schools would collaborate with the charter community. Before reaching conclusions, here is the entire text:
“Welcome to the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Charter School Summit 2010: Communicate-Collaborate-Coexist.
Many people in Santa Clara County believe charter school competition with traditional public schools is beneficial. When an enlightened educational community collaborates, shares best practices on increasing student achievement for all and works smartly to eliminate the achievement gap, our children win. However, if competition creates fear and hostility, our children lose.
We believe that increased communication and collaboration between
the charter school and traditional public school communities will increase high school graduation rates for all students. It is essential that we work together to do the research that will lead to sustained growth for all our students.
Silicon Valley has been the global leader in innovation for half a century. We know you want all Silicon Valley schools, charter and traditional public, to be the envy of the state and nation. You want all our children to succeed at the highest level. By interacting with national, state, and local educational leaders and developing a cogent plan for next steps, we can shape our future for the better.
We thank our extraordinary Task Force which has worked tirelessly for six months to develop today’s Summit program. We also acknowledge the Santa Clara County Board of Education for having the courage to sponsor the event, the Superintendent of Schools for providing staff support, our facilitators, keynote speakers, moderators, panelists and you the participant for making today’s Summit a success for all.”
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Joanne Jacobs’ book on the founding of Downtown College Prep stated explicitly that the school expels students for low academic achievement. Well, by definition that school is not “open to all,” and by definition it’s dumping its least successful students on regular public schools. How can anyone even question those points, unless Jacobs got it wrong?
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In response to the comment that Downtown College Prep “expels students for low academic achievement” I presume the writer hasn’t made the effort to understand the purpose of our school. Downtown College Prep’s mission is to prepare underachieving students who will be the first in their family to graduate from college to thrive at four-year universities. We explicitly target students who have failed in middle school and are below grade level in core subjects. We offer a program where kids catch up on the skills they should have learned in elementary and middle school while accelerating them to achieve rigorous standards aligned with the A-G curriculum. We have never in our ten years expelled a student for low academic achievement. I will note that going from a 5th grade reading level to AP English in the span of 4 years requires a deep commitment on the part of students to create new habits and develop a new mindset about schooling and their future. There are students who aren’t willing to participate in an extended day or commit their summers in order to overcome the academic gaps. They often choose to leave DCP and to attend a traditional school where the graduation requirements are less rigorous. These students are our “target student” and every time one of them leaves our program we re-commit to making the path to college success something that all kids can achieve.
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My book, “Our School” (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.), explains that Downtown College Prep recruits students who are way behind academically: The average ninth grader starts with a fifth-grade reading and math level. The district’s counselors encourage “at-risk” students with poor behavior and attendance records and disability labels to go to DCP.
It’s not uncommon for students to need two years in ninth grade (and two summer school sessions) to pass enough courses to make it to 10th grade. Students who fail ninth grade twice are not allowed to return for a third year in the same grade. (Who’d want to?) Perhaps this is what Grannan means.
It makes sense to me to offer DCP as an alternative for low achievers. If it doesn’t work for them — and it won’t work for everyone — they can try one of the district-run programs for at-risk students, which have much lower expectations (but much higher failure rates).
In researching “Our School,” I saw many students struggle and fail. Most stuck with it, started doing the work, improved and went on to college, where they struggled, failed, worked harder and improved. The first group of DCP grads to earn college degrees included some former F students. DCP doesn’t give up on low achievers.
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Page 211 of Joanne Jacobs’ “Our School” The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds”:
“Many students left DCP for academic or behavioral reasons.”
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Do not believe everything Jen Andaluz feeds you. DCP DOES dump academically low students. It is bad form to have students in your school that don’t meet the mission and so they are quietly disposed. But there are the few students that do make it to the end and do quiet well. But these students are usually not that low academically in the first place. It is not pretty but it IS what happens at this school. unfortunately, with such high turn around with teachers because they are severely over worked and severely underpaid, despite a recent pay raise in the past few years and the administration feels that this is competitive pay, but the truth is with increasing lack of support from the community and donors with the deep pocketbooks, how could they possibly be competitive? Every year is different and nothing is allowed to develop and improve. This school will be successful once the ED and the entire administration and perhaps some of the board are removed and actual educators with classroom experience and credentials are allowed to lead the school.
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Do not believe everything Jen Andaluz feeds you. DCP DOES dump academically low students. It is bad form to have students in your school that don’t meet the mission and so they are quietly disposed. But there are the few students that do make it to the end and do quiet well. But these students are usually not that low academically in the first place. It is not pretty but it IS what happens at this school. unfortunately, with such high turn around with teachers because they are severely over worked and severely underpaid, despite a recent pay raise in the past few years and the administration feels that this is competitive pay, but the truth is with increasing lack of support from the community and donors with the deep pocketbooks, how could they possibly be competitive? Every year is different and nothing is allowed to develop and improve. This school will be successful once the ED and the entire administration and perhaps some of the board are removed and actual educators with classroom experience and credentials are allowed to lead the school.
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My book, “Our School,” does not state that DCP expels students for low achievement. Nearly all students are low achievers when they enroll. Some students take five years to graduate, which is not considered a big deal.
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